


Through Blood and Soul, I Find You

by Megan360



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bloodbending (Avatar), Canon Rewrite, F/M, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-12
Updated: 2020-10-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 06:55:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26967850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Megan360/pseuds/Megan360
Summary: At the aftermath of the Final Agni Kai, Katara is tasked with healing a devastating wound. At the end of her rope, she discovers she has yet more to give.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 59
Collections: Zutara Quote Challenge 2020





	Through Blood and Soul, I Find You

**Author's Note:**

> Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind.  
> Because your lover threw wild hands to toward the sky  
> And the affrighted steed ran on alone,   
> Do not weep.  
> War is kind. 
> 
> \- Stephen Crane
> 
> For RideBoldlyRide's 2020 Prompt Challenge.

Yugoda once said “Our work will always require a level of intuition, do not force it. Chi knows how it needs to flow. We guide its currents; the body knows what itself.” 

Sokka once brought down a hunting knife, full force, onto the path of a carelessly placed thumb. She saw the exact moment when he realized what was about to happen, and his horror that he couldn’t stop his own body.

Aang once encased himself in a crystal dome. Something else rose out, something both him and not him. And then a tattooed figure fell down that was neither. 

Katara was well aware about how separate a body was from a person. How a person can hold and inspire and think, but a body vomits and sweats and faints. However, supporting the mount meant supporting the person. A well fed family is one capable of facing its demons.

A body is a necessary evil. A wild smelly thing that they should all be glad to be rid of eventually. She thinks this in jest. When elbow deep in dirty clothes or bent over in pain from her period or dealing with Toph’s reek. She needs the universe to understand she was only joking. 

Regardless of her pleas, Prince Zuko, her ally, her friend and last hope of the Fire Nation throws his messy body in the path of a lightning strike aimed at her. 

A shared stillness hung as both Azula and Katara stared at the prone form that housed Zuko. 

As soon as he twitches on that ground, she snaps alert and flows forward intent. Only muscle memory built in wartimes protected her from Azula’s attack. She deflects and reorients herself as she keeps an eye on the struggling Fire Prince. She could see the person flickering in and out as his body reached for her. 

Azula kept up the pressure, pushing her farther and farther away from the boy. Recklessly burning everything in her wake and wasting valuable breath to taunt. As everything chars and burns, Katara’s months in the Fire Nation assure her of one thing. They wouldn’t build a fire bending stage without a major water source. 

A plan to survive forming, the waterbender lured the unhinged royal under the veranda. Taking stock of her environment and holding a chain in shockingly steady hands, Azula appears. 

“There you are, filthy peasant!” Katara turns, chain in hand to see the uncanny image of the boy she’s trying to save. The eyes, a warm amber that never loses its shade no matter how cruel the owner gets. The downturned nose with the structured bridge that’s always so eager to quirk with emotion. Azula’s hair with its new severe bang, reminds her of hurt boy looking for peace under the earthen city. 

It’s almost unfair. How Azula carries his face while disregarding him so easily. 

She baits Azula with a evadable attack. And like a mink snake, Azula charges forward well within her guard. Then while looking into those familiar golds, Katara taps into the water below their feet and ends it. 

Quickly ensuring Azula’s wrists and ankles were attached to the grate. Katara speeds off after the wounded, quivering boy. 

She kneels at his side and almost bites her tongue off. The smell of burnt flesh was overwhelming. Like the scent that greeted them when the door opened revealing what Yon Rha had left. His red clothes, the soft cloth that was meant to protect him from his armor, was melded to his flesh by the heat. And his heart, his poor heart stutters and beats wildly out of rhythm, trying to regain a pattern that feels like home. 

His eyes never stop facing her while she adjusts him. But there were moments where it was just amber but not _him_. Movement, no purpose. 

She takes the water from her pouch and lays it on his chest for a reading and almost sobs. It was Zuko, of course _his_ body wouldn’t know what to do, especially with Azula involved. His chi was charged and chaotic, distracting her from what was important. A wild rumor mill that dragged her from heart chakra to stomach chakra to throat chakra. Each begging for the other organ’s sake but none capable of prioritizing. 

She couldn’t guide this, it was too confused. 

A cry building in her throat, the once last bender of the Southern Water Tribe took the advice of her predecessor and found the water. 

The natural flow of his chi paths and the forceful rushing of his blood combined to create Zuko, a Zuko in pain. Without the full moon, she couldn’t drag him around the field. But she could _know_ him, make minute movements that could be devastating in the compact arena of his body. She needed to guide one and control the other. 

One of her hands was submerged in the water, close to the skin with a padding of water between them. The other hand, pinched and gnarled as she swept it up and down his abdomen forcing herself to make this savage technique delicate. 

It was a storm. His chi wasn’t just his own, the partially redirected lightning forcibly injected energy directly into his paths. Filled to burst as they were, there was barely any space to maneuver. On the other end, his blood explained the organs were struggling and damaged. It was all she could do to make his blood course like there weren’t a thousand openings to escape through. She could barely make sense of where his head and feet were in the noise. 

What’s worse is they were advocating for each other. The blood kept directing her to the overflowing store of chi in his stomach. And all his chi paths kept suggesting she focus on the busted blood vessels they neighbored. She finds herself healing arbitrarily then stopping to deal with another blocked flow his body assures her is vital. Round and round with no clear improvements, all on dwindling reserves.

A mad part of her mind drifted off into memory while the rest scrambles to make sense of the cacophony in his chest. Zuko, he first explained to her seasons ago, was chasing his honor. Even after tying her to a tree, he played at a child's version of honor. Sounding smug as he assured her that, he didn’t steal her necklace. No, unlike her, he was not a thief; simply a kidnapper. It was such an absurd memory that she started laughing. Or crying. She thinks she’s crying.

The boy whose body was falling apart under her fingers struggled to look at her. “Katara”, he starts through gritted teeth, “It’s okay.”

Even now, he’s being ridiculous for the sake of being noble. “Shut up, I’m working,” She scolds him. She was trying to keep him in this body. Force this messy, battered, scarred thing not to give its final buck and send him beyond her reach. 

She tries to leech the energy out of his overwhelmed paths. The water heating steadily under her focus, while that was happening his heart lurches and abruptly switches patterns to something much more spaced out. Clenching and releasing her cramper hand, Katara pumped his heart herself.

This cannot be happening, she had more things to scold him about, more things to yell at him over. She still hasn’t gotten an apology for those weeks her necklace smelled like smoky boy. Or gotten him to talk more about how celestial their talents were. Let’s not forget, she also hasn’t found actual baby pictures to tease him with. 

And she wants more of that feeling that arose when he asked her to be his partner. 

In a matter of minutes, Katara was draining her reserves. She refuses to look at his face while struggling to focus on keeping him alive. Memories and regrets keep flashing in her mind. She has so many memories of him angry and morose. So few serene. 

In saving him, his future is redirecting an entire county. How often would he get to be serene then?

Her hands tremble as she approaches her wall. Her breaths are heavier and there’s barely any water left in her to cry out. Her clawed hand gets limper and her flowing one gets stiff. It is in the loosening of her stances she feels it. The link. 

Katara once told Zuko, under crystal skies, that his face was once the face of the enemy. She watched it change before her eyes from Fire Prince Zuko to Zuko to **Zuko**. Between each version was this imprecise state, where he was both. The crossroads. 

There were crossroads in his body. That’s how the chi was speaking to the blood and vice versa. There was a link to exploit, a chance to save him.

Katara turns her head, ready to command his attention. Eager to reassure him and beg him to hold on, only to find him already looking at her. His face was so serene and gentle. She could feel hers echoing his. A clear thought cleaved through her mind, would healing him be a mistake?

Would he get to be like this on the throne? Would healing this wound kill the boy from the Western Air Temple? Was this injury the kindest thing Azula ever did for him? An honorable death in the hands of a girl who- 

“Zuko,” His was looking at her. Fading in and out of focus, in this limbo she had forced on him again. “Sometimes, war is kind. It gives our most hurt warriors a path to peace. I’m going to try to save you. It will be risky and hard and painful and you’re probably used to all of that. But-”

At this she steadies her voice, “But I need you to know, it’s okay, to leave. I’ll- we’ll forgive you.”

With that final offer of mercy, Katara works without waiting for a response. She lets herself see how the chi paths and his body interconnect. All the ways these pieces make a whole being. Her exhausted hands try to heal his whole body, both the spirit and the vessel. It feels better but the noise was still guiding her back to his stomach and hurt lungs.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees sparks pop out. 

Zuko was trying to help. 

He was pushing weak streams of fire out through his mouth. Trying to siphon from the ocean Azula forced into him.

Katara tries to work with him. Flowing water over the damaged chi paths, as he worked the energy out of his system. Then as Katara was healing around the pool in his gut, Zuko called on the energy within it. The combination of reforming energy and the guidance she was providing was a revelation. It was healing everything. 

It used up every bit of chi he was mustering, leaving him huffing smoke. But now it wasn’t just Katara against the immovable anymore. It was the shot of Azula’s lightning, turned into something usable by Zuko’s bending, being reworked into something that could save a life through Katara’s healing. 

The noise of his body was trying to speak to her. His stupid, messy, boy body was trying to help her. 

Immediately she works with his gut. Focusing on mending everything his chi sang about. She followed the path his energy moved through to perform his stunted breath of fire. From his throat to his chest to his gut to his chest to his throat, up and down she went with all the focus she had. Cycling so often she knew his body more than she knew her own.

And when she needed to go deeper, she went deeper. She conducted all this corporeal drive through his lungs. Merging and soothing the rips in the surrounding vessels, tissues and air ways. Using the energy to fuse them together to technical wholeness. Then finally, added the extra reinforcement for the true challenge. 

Katara focused all her water and his reworked chi into Zuko’s disoriented heart. The thing was bruised, shocked and singed but kept its stuttering beat going. 

She soothed what she could. Then with a clawed hand, gave it a pattern to pump to that she knew worked. As Sozin’s Comet flew over the horizon, the waterbender made the future Fire Lord’s heart beat to hers.

At that final act, Azula’s gifted energy was depleted and with it he was farther away from danger than she could have hoped. Still there were sloppily healed paths and vessels, and the scar was still there. 

She wouldn’t tap into his stores but with the excess energy gone there wasn’t anything left to work with. Unless she could give her own…

Katara pushed more as she ran her hand over his chest. Her water was completely used up but there was some slight bleeding at the edges of the cauterized wound. She just needed to push her chi into his chi, and he could be whole. She could perform another miracle, spare him one more scar. Rear up that “healing water action” as Aang put it. If she could just, give a little more.

She brought her palm to her teeth, ready to slice it open and create more conductive medium to connect them. Her teeth were clamped down and neck tensed to tear when a cool hand stopped her. Interrupting the arrogant yet compassionate thoughts that challenged her to ruin herself for his sake. 

For the seconds they looked at each other, Katara regains her bearings. She notices the fire sages on the other end of the arena, out in the open after the siblings finished their burning. The ground was no longer wet, vague memories of her summoning whenever the water under her hands dried surfaces. At some point, Azula’s broken screams had devolved into shattered gasps. 

Her focus returned, until she noticed the boy holding her hand to his glossy, pulsing chest. It must hurt. Hurting himself to comfort her, they were both such messes. She thinks to apologize when his soft, weak voice interrupts her, “Thank you, Katara.”

Through the haze, she sees why she was looking to bleed herself dry for his sake, “I think I'm the one who should be thanking you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Long time listener, first time caller for the Zutara fandom. Glad to contribute something to this ancient fandom's canon. Hope you enjoyed some part of this!


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